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NCCU Builds a New Home for Military-Affiliated Students
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A new military affairs role at North Carolina Central aims to turn veteran support, ROTC development and campus culture into a lasting institutional priority.
North Carolina Central University is making a direct investment in military-affiliated students, veterans and future service members with a new leadership role designed to bring those communities closer to the center of campus life. Ariel Aponte, the university's associate vice chancellor for military affairs, is overseeing an effort that reaches roughly 940 military-affiliated students, the university's ROTC programs and Department of Defense research.
The position is more than an administrative title. Aponte describes its purpose as recreating the access and awareness of a veterans affairs department within the university setting: connecting students to benefits, building a culture of welcome and creating relationships between those with military experience and those without it. For an HBCU with an opportunity to serve students whose needs can be overlooked, the work is about belonging as much as it is about programs.
A New Role With a Broad Campus Mission
Aponte's role is an inaugural one, created under the leadership of Chancellor Karrie G. Dixon. Its portfolio combines military-affiliated student support, the Air Force and Army ROTC programs, and Department of Defense research. That structure matters because military-connected students often move through several systems at once: academics, financial aid, veterans benefits, career preparation and the adjustment to a traditional campus environment.
Aponte said the first responsibility is to create a welcoming culture. His approach is not limited to serving students after they identify a problem. It starts with education and visibility, so students understand the resources available to them and the broader campus understands the value military-connected students bring. In his view, bridging the gap between veterans and classmates who have never served is part of preparing a stronger university community.
Veterans Day Programming Connects Service and Community
That mission is on display in NCCU's Veterans Day programming, beginning with a 2.2-mile walk intended to bring student-athletes, ROTC participants and the community together. The campus is also scheduled to host Gov. Josh Stein, who will recognize five veterans and one military spouse. The day concludes with community service focused on homeless veterans.
The programming reflects a more expansive definition of support. Recognition ceremonies are important, but Aponte's vision also emphasizes service, education and shared experience. A walk can appear simple, yet it creates a point of contact between students who may have different backgrounds but a common campus. The planned focus on homeless veterans also grounds the observance in a need that exists beyond the university gates.
For NCCU, the value is not merely in holding an annual event. It is in using the event to establish relationships that can continue after Veterans Day. Bringing ROTC students, athletes, veterans and community members into the same space offers a practical lesson in leadership: institutions earn trust by making service visible and by following recognition with action.
Access to Benefits Can Change a Student's Path
Aponte's experience in the North Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs shaped his focus on awareness. He said many veterans do not fully know the services and resources available to them, including help with claims and benefits. One example is the Children of Wartime Veterans Scholarship, a higher-education resource that he said delivered $1.2 million to NCCU from 2024 to 2026 and affected 94 lives.
Those numbers illustrate why military affairs work cannot be treated as a side office or a once-a-year observance. Financial support can determine whether a student stays enrolled, completes a degree or carries avoidable debt. Aponte's goal is to connect students with those opportunities earlier and more consistently, while also making clear that benefits navigation is a core part of student success.
His own path gives the mission personal credibility. Aponte said he graduated high school with a 1.56 GPA, entered the military as a cook in 1998, completed 10 deployments and ultimately became a retired Special Forces officer. He continued his education through Fayetteville Technical Community College and beyond, later serving as an adviser to the governor and becoming a valedictorian. His message to young people is direct: get comfortable being uncomfortable, find mentors and believe there is room at the table.
What It Means
The most important part of NCCU's new initiative may be its insistence that military-connected students should not have to search alone for community, information or opportunity. By putting responsibility for those connections into a senior university role, the school is treating veterans and ROTC students as contributors to campus leadership rather than as a separate population to be acknowledged only on patriotic occasions.
Aponte has said he wants to invest in future leaders, and that is the standard by which this effort should be measured. If NCCU can pair its welcoming culture with clear access to benefits, meaningful service and leadership development, its military affairs initiative can become more than a new office. It can become a durable pathway for students whose service, discipline and experience already have much to offer the university.
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